So Richard made his new post in the Aid Climbing forum, and within moments, furious climbers [including] responded in anger at gawd's act.

Gawd read the post and responded - he was extremely unrepentent.

Further angst followed, the gist of which was that [to put it kindly] gawd was rather unsportsmanlike in his actions. Several people offered him suggestions, and looked forward to meeting him.

The reason it was in the Aid Forum is that this is the "meeting place" for Yosemite climbers worldwide. Gawd's ratting us out is an extremely serious action that affects all Yosemite climbers evidently in perpetuity.

Translation - we're pissed! Big time!

But my anger is NOTHING compared to what I feel now - that this post has evidently been deleted.

i agree... free speech... whats going on with rc and deleting posts... ive seen 2 deleted in the past three days... petes and the one about gays... i love women and i found the post extremely odd, but it just asked if there were gay climbers out there. there was no need to delete that post. there was no shocking statements in there... WTF... and in regard to the gawd post... WTF too... gawd obviously felt he could hold his own since he replied to the posts bashing him (which he deserves)... there wasnt anything wrong with the post about gawd... i had nothign to do with the post or the people that are the subject of it... im pissed... this is just gay (pun not intended)... whats next, are u going to kick users of rc.com???

What gawd did is so not cool. If he were in front of me I'd tie him up with cordelette, stuff him into an oversized pig and send him to Camp 5 with a note on his forehead. And elrojobdugs, users have already been kicked off this site before.

The post had to do with a confession made by gawd that he ratted out all the Yosemite climbers by emailing the rangers to tell them we were bending the rules by storing climbing gear in bear boxes, which we've done for years unmolested.

Shortly after gawd's claim to inform the tools, all the bear boxes were locked and the gear confiscated!

I can't begin to tell you how pissed off the entire Yosemite community was.

Rich Copeland [justsendingits] made a post in Aid this aft talking about how he had HIS gear confiscated, and made various comments concerning gawd. I called gawd a fool and a coward. Ed [up2top] told me he expressed concern that the post was becoming a flame, and thought maybe it should be moved to Community.

I told Ed that the content of the now deleted post was mild compared to the stuff people have written about me, and which remained, in the aid forum.

There were 15 replies to the post, when suddenly it was completely deleted by persons unknown. It's gone.

I'm EXTREMELY ANGERED.

It is my intent NOT to let this die. Sorry. I intend to get to the bottom of this.

I hope you are as concerned as I about unwanted posts being deleted by censors unknown.

Why wasn't it moved to Community at least?

Or to Archives?

Who did it? Can you find out?

Let's get to the bottom of this asap to make sure that stuff like this doesn't become commonplace around here.

Freedom of speech is FUNDAMENTAL to our survival at RC.com. Without it, and with people deleting stuff they don't like, the website is DOOMED.

i take back my refute against rc.com... its really not that big of a deal... youre just repeating what u did to make your post removed... flaming and overly flaming at that... its rediculous how your overreacting... step back, take a look, and chill brotha

pete, I was looking at that thread when it got erased, but rest assured I'm one for doing something about this whole situation!

D

Hello climbinganne!

This is an automatically generated message.

daisuke changed the amount of time required between your postings in the forums, to 3600 seconds (60 minutes ) with the following comment:

purposely got past the language filter AGAIN

THIS IS WHAT HE WAS DOING...

Man, that's messed up. And so is the whole other post getting deleted. Since when can we not speak freely? Did anyone truly feel offended by any of this? Maybe they should learn to except it, and deal with it.

In the words of Voltaire (I think): "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend, to my death, your right to say it"

No word yet on who or why it was deleted, but please, fortheluvaGawd! Everyone take a deep breath and try to relax.

Andrew, I'll take this opportunity to publically thank you for the time, effort, and patience you have devoted to moderating the aid forum. You may be getting a PM or two from me looking for some guidance.

Ed [up2top] told me via PM that he did not delete the post, and I verily believe him.

What I have to wonder is, who would have a motive to delete the post?

Obviously gawd would. But he couldn't, could he? Or is gawd really one of our moderators' secret usernames? It's possible, isn't it?

Did somebody delete the post because it makes RC.com "look bad"? Well, it's true that it's an unpleasant topic, but if you think things are unpleasant here, you ought to have been in Yosemite in Camp 5 last June when incensed climbers found their stuff confiscated.

Gawd admitted to doing this in the post I've linked above. Read it for yourself. You'll find it at the beginning of the post.

Despicable though gawd's act is - and the ripple effect it has had in changing the way Yosemite climbers live - is not the issue here in the General Forum. We will deal with gawd in the Aid Forum, the area where Yosemite climbers [who this issue affects] hang out.

[Whoever deleted the post is a fool to believe it would disappear. It's coming back, with a vengeance. Richard is rewriting his post at the moment. Watch the Aid Forum for a *real* doozy ... if you think the one that was deleted was something, wait'll you see this one...]

The issue here is censorship - the deletion of unwanted posts by coward unknown.

The entire survival of the website is on the line. Without the ability to express ourselves freely, the place is doomed. It smacks of Stalinism.

I write this as one who has been flamed a lot. Some of it was justified, some of it was self-inflicted, but most of it was untrue, stupid, and just plain malicious. [This is OK - I like the attention]

However my point is this - the flames against me were much nastier than this one which was just deleted - yet those flames against me weren't deleted.

Are you aware that the #1 Most Read Topic of All Time as RC.com was a flame about me? It generated over 33,000 hits. You'll find it in the Trip Reports forum. Or check the Top 10, which is linked at left.

Perhaps I over-reacted to Andrew. Certainly some of my anger stems from a personal dispute I have with him, and I allowed it to colour my post.

But mostly, my anger at Andrew is his cavalier attitude - how he simply dismisses something as important as censorship with a flick of the wrist!

How would you feel if you were reading the New York Times, or the Toronto Star, and right in front of your eyes, somebody walked up and took their scissors the very article you were reading, and suddenly it was gone?

What would happen if Sixty Minutes or W-5 or a similar show were publishing something nasty about a politician or whatever, and suddenly the plug was pulled on the cable?

How would you like it if the books were pulled out your library and burned? Maybe not so obviously, but what if a certain volume or two that the librarian didn't like were "removed" or "accidentally" lost.

This ain't really my fight, but, a few observations about this site, that pretty much apply to other sites too:

1. You step on some admin's pal, you get a warning or a ban or something. people are just that way.

2. Some moderators and or admins are overzealous. Some are too easily offended. Some are having a bad day. Some have big egos or power trips. All will use bad judgement once in a while. BUT, does it really matter in the long run, when by and large things run pretty well around here? Do you need to have a temper tantrum over one stupid post?

3. Free speech in a non-publicly funded forum? HAHAHAHAHAHA forget it! Unless RC.com is publicly funded, by the government, or part of the gov, it's private. And that means, RC.com can do what they want about censorship. You can hold your breath til yo uturn blue and it won't matter. That might not seem fair, but then, you can start your own web page adn say whatever you want-- THAT is free speech. You do not have the right to say whatever you want on someone elses's site, they can choose to let what you say live or die.

4. Some things probably need censoring. Who decides this? Hopefully someone wise and responsible. I'm glad it's not me LOL. Personally, I'd like to see a LOT MORE post moving and deleting, cause there is 99% crap on this site, and even good threads get hijacked and stepped on by dumb-butts, and if it were up to me, and I had the time and the money, Id spend all day cleaning up this dung heap, so be GLAD you avhe the mods and admins you've got! 8)

5. How could anyone tar pitt climbinganne? This makes no sense.

6. PTPP has an ego the size of Seward's Folly, it's true, but think of the entertainment value! Why anyone would want to do something as twisted and sick as aid climbing when there is all that freeclimbing out there is beyond me, but after all, he IS from Canada, and probably was dropped on his head one time to many as a small child. Don't cut him any slack, but don't flame the poor thing either, he really doea a lot for all the misguided aiders. :P

Time to quit before I piss everyone off hahahahahaha.

If this post makes you mad, remember, it's words on a screen on a computer. You coudl be doing something worthwhile instead! IF it made you laugh, I like your sense of humor.

I can handle having my thread deleted,(although none to happy about it)It's just the way it was done,no PM from whoever did it,explaining why..

Content I guess,but it pales in comparison to MANY other threads I can still look at on this site.I have said way worse before here.Although the title of the thread could have been more tactful."Should Gawd be nailed to the pole at camp 5"

But I did phrase it in the form of a question like Alex Trebeck tought me...

Andrew,I think you did a fine job as Mod. of the aid forum.And thank you for all your work.

pete - if this smacks of stalinism in your world, i would encourage you to go somewhere where you can see firsthand what stalin created. i just came back from such a place, and you clearly have no idea what reality can be like. in a stalinist society, for even writing something like this you would have disappeared forever. get some perspective.

mistakes happen - moderators and admins are human. i have accidentally deleted a few posts during my time as a mod and admin - i meant to move them or edit them, and i hit the wrong button. shit happens. there certainly is not or couldn't be any sort of administration sanctioned protection of gawd - remember that he was banned in the past for being incendiary, and he is certainly capable of standing up for his own actions right or wrong. my guess is this whole thing is an honest mistake, but i no longer have any way of knowing(nor do i care).

when you go off on a rampage like this pete, you look like a fool. your grandstanding does no good whatsoever, and antagonizes anyone who would have any sympathy for your stance. if it does turn out to be a mistake, i hope you eat your crow and apologize, but i am sure you will not. of all the people who should forgive a mistake, it should be you - i can't count the number of times i got pm's from you to fix up some post of yours that you screwed up in the aid forum, and i've spent more time trying to defend your personal gaffes to other mods/admins even as recently as yesterday. i don't like you much, but i also don't think you should be treated unfairly based on someone's personal dislike.

i never, ever did any unethical moderating in any of my forums while a mod or admin, and i challenge you to prove otherwise. part of the reason why i gladly walked away when ed stepped up was to be rid of dealing with you and the legions of people complaining about you. i did a good job of not acting on impulses when pissed off by people - perhaps you should try to do that as well.